Screws and Screwing for Dummies

One of our staffers ran across a book review yesterday that mentioned that a book had a "HFN ending." Confused, he looked it up and learned that it's a romance novel with a "happy for now" ending, as opposed to "happily ever after." That explained why the initialism was unfamiliar: he's not a romance reader, so he couldn't be expected to know the difference between HFN and HEA endings. He does now, though. Similarly, we don't expect freelancers with education degrees to be able to explain "What Is the Difference Between Wood Screws & Drywall Screws?" We weren't disappointed: Hunker.com freelancer Tanya Lee was overmatched by the question...

Oh, Lee went to a few fastener websites and got some descriptive information, factoids like,

"Wood screws are numbered from 0 to 20, indicating a diameter from about 1/16 in. to 5/16 in. The length of wood screws is measured in inches and fractions of inches and ranges from approximately 3/4 inches long to 4 inches. Drywall screws are available in sizes 6 to 10, with the size indicating threads/per inch."

Sorry, Tanya, the number assigned to a drywall screw is not the TPI, it's the overall diameter of its threads. The number of a wood screw is, generally, inversely correlated with the TPI and directly correlated with the overall diameter. Lee then went on to wax eloquent about the different head types – round, oval, flat – and gave some page space to slotted vs. Phillips head (with a brief mention of square drive, but none of star, Torx®, cap, etc.) before revealing that drywall screws have a "bugle" head. Works for us...

Unfortunately, however, Lee's post was ultimately useless. It was useless because virtually everything she wrote boiled down to a description of the screws and some verbiage on their uses. What she neglected to mention is that, because of the intended uses, the screws have different designs and physical characteristics. Among those are,

• Drywall screws are more brittle than wood screws.
• Drywall screws have a thinner shaft and wider thread than the same size wood screw, and the threads of drywall screws are sharpened.
• Drywall screws come in coarse thread for wooden studs and fine thread for metal studs.
• Wood screws (usually) have a length of non-threaded shank; drywall screws are threaded all the way to the head.

Like many a non-tool user, Tanya devoted the bulk of an article that should talk about the physical characteristics of a product to flowery descriptions. While doing so, she neglected to discuss any of the physical differences between the two types of screws, even though she herself explained that, "[M]atching the screw to the job is critical for a successful project."

Lee's post did little or nothing to make the matching process easier. That's why we are naming Tanya our Dumbass of the Day.

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